


if things go right, we can frame it

by leopoldjamesfitz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: A love story out of order, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And I am sorry for this mess, F/M, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine, She prompted one scene, my mind came up with the rest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9789398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leopoldjamesfitz/pseuds/leopoldjamesfitz
Summary: Twelve years ago, Cadets Fitz and Simmons met when they were paired together in a lab together. Their connection was almost instantaneous, and it didn’t take long (only 373 days, not that Jemma counted) before their connection bloomed into something more significant. Their connection continued through the Academy right through the moment when they were instigated as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. Now married, the paired Fitz-Simmons team were settled into their own team and given the chance to change the world, but when an Op turned sour a grieving family weren’t the only ones set apart. It’s been two years since this incident, and a lot has happened - including their separation - but everything changes when Agent Jemma Simmons turns up at the playground.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stjarna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/gifts).



> This is for the lovely @stjarna on AO3 and @the-nerdy-stjarna on tumblr. I really hope that you liked this, and that it didn't become a cluster mess like my last attempt at FitzSimmons fanfiction was. I hope the jumping around in dates didn't confuse you too much, but I was telling a story out of order. Happy Valentine's Day!

** Day 3664  **

There was bile looming in her throat as she was pushed between two Hydra agents. For years now, she’d been a part of this facility, secretly wiring notes back to S.H.I.E.L.D. And even though their suspicion wasn’t on her at all, she was nervous. Director Coulson himself has sent in this young S.H.I.E.L.D agent, whom she’d been given intel on just a couple of months before. She was someone they’d sent in to gather intel in an area she wasn’t privy to and it had been her job to watch over her and ensure her safety. Agent Daisy Johnson was the closest thing Director Coulson had to a protégé and she was well respected within his hand selected team.

The suspicion that rose in the agent’s direction wasn’t good, though she hadn’t been given an opportunity to be able to speak with her one on one and warn her. Nonetheless, protecting Daisy meant she would either have to put her life on the line to rescue her, or slyly send her out in the way of the waiting quinjet. The latter seemed nearly impossible. There was enough of a query on her, as well as a handful of other agents, that there was a league of her colleagues waiting outside the doors. Each man or woman had a pick on who their unfortunate agent would be, and thankfully she’d managed to get Daisy. The baboons to her side fell a step behind her as they walked into training for the Operations bureau, obviously letting her lead. She was both pleased and terribly frightened, counting out all the ways that she could get out of this room with the agent.

“Excuse me,” she said, and her voice was almost immediately dissolved into the noise of the room. The men and women inside both chatted aimlessly and fought among themselves, clearly aiming to pump up their already high egos. Jemma rolled her eyes and straightened a little, clearing her throat. “Excuse me!” She said, louder and more prominent. The room slowly eased into silence. Perfect. She tucked a stray piece of her blonde hair behind her ear and looked forward at the troops.

“I’ve been told there is a mole in Hydra that we are to take care of immediately.” She stated, jumping right to the point. There was no real reason as to why she should dance around the truth, and her time in Hydra had taught her as much. “Now, I know most of you would like to lay the blame on someone else, but we have very credible sources regarding the leak and I expect, if I call your name, that you immediately step forward and line up vertically in front of the group. If you do not, you will be shot on command.”

The rest of the list were mostly low profile targets, people that the Hydra heads didn’t necessarily trust and she expected, other than Daisy’s involvement, that this was mostly a recurring initiation ceremony. Weed out the weak, more or less. She’d never been involved in such a task, as her promotion had been recent as just a month before. The room remained hushed, the thick tension crowding them in quickly.

“Jeremiah Lincoln,” she said, beginning with the first name on the list. It had bothered her when she’d come in that these names hadn’t been in any sort of order, perhaps alphabetical or at least numerical (by age) but she hadn’t had the time to arrange them before the baboons at either side of her had told her that she would have to immediately perform the requested task. Looking up, she saw a heavier set dark haired man step forward, shaking a little but remaining straight-laced and aware. She smiled approvingly.

Reading down through the list, she was careful with the breaks she took in between each name, waiting to see if anyone responded to the name she’d presented. Luckily everyone seemed present and ready to accept the punishment they deserved, even Daisy. Her name was called last and Jemma smiled at her, mostly out of pity, as she fell in line with the large group of recruits. “Everyone else, out,” she shouted and watched as the inhabitants that hadn’t had their name stuttered and then rushed out of the room, obviously relieved.

The large group of twenty or more (twenty-six, not that she’d counted) had been mostly divided between her colleagues, and were all waiting to take them in to private interrogation rooms that involve the worst of the worst, things she had managed to evade in her time with Hydra. Daisy was hers, though, and she’d picked her interrogation room perfectly in relation to the staircase that would lead them to the room that they would, more than likely, both have to jump off. Unfortunately, she saw no other way now more than ever than to overpower the baboons that had stationed themselves behind her, especially as more entered the room, clearly on the direction of her colleagues.

“Each of you will be assigned a higher-level agent who will question you.” Jemma finally spoke again, the weight of the situation hitting her. She’d been a hydra agent for almost two years now but there was still so much for her to learn. Everything she’d needed was in the bag looped around her neck, but Agent Johnson wouldn’t be given the same consideration. She almost hated that they’d brought in Daisy, especially if they hadn’t thought she was ready. “Again, when I call your name please turn toward the door. One of our security officers will assist the agent, and you, to the interrogation room of their choice.”

She began again with Jeremiah, who was quick to step forward and walk out with his head high. The next man who followed wasn’t as confident. His name was Stephen Carter and his parents had been in Hydra before their untimely death. Jemma knew very little about him other than his relation to Peggy Carter herself was significant enough that the Hydra heads were proud they’d gotten him. It followed like this until finally, only the baboons that stepped in with her and Daisy remained. “And Daisy Johnson,” she spoke levelly, looking more clearly at how frightened the young girl must be in this moment, thinking she was inches away from death. “You’ll be with me.”

The nervousness in her features didn’t dissipate and Jemma wasn’t sure if she should take that as a compliment or as a criticism. They had roughly five minutes, given the time she’d calculated for them to walk to the interrogation room from the gymnasium, to make friends and make it out alive. Daisy would need to trust her for this, and that already seemed like an incredible feat. Jemma stepped forward, raising her hand to ward off the men behind her. Once satisfied that they would remain exactly where they were, she stepped forward until she and Daisy met in the middle. Jemma dipped her head, golden locks falling to form around her face.

“How fine tuned are your fighting skills?” She asked quietly, low enough that her security officers wouldn’t hear it. Daisy raised her eyebrows in silence question. “I’m Agent Simmons, Level 7 S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and I’m going to get you out of here,” she said, a promise she intended to keep. “But in order to do that, we both need to be able to overpower Victor and Vince there,” she said again, keeping her voice low and even.

Daisy looked skeptical, but nodded. “I’ve got this,” she told her honestly, rubbing her palms together and then shooting out a burst of air straight toward the men. The force pushed them both on the ground and the brunette grinned in her direction. “Now, blondie,” she teased. “How fast can you run?”

 

* * *

 

** Day 3665 **

“Agent Johnson will be extracted today,” Phil Coulson began the meeting as he usually would, cutting right to the chase. By the surprised faces in the room, he couldn’t help but think that no one had quite expected this operation to finish as quickly as it did, but Daisy had gathered enough intelligence in her short time there, enough to fill in the missing pieces that they didn’t already have.

Agent Triplett stepped forward, his arms crossed in front of him. He, above everyone else in this room, knew that it had been a bad idea to send her in undercover in the first place. He’d expressed as much at the many meetings they had had regarding the situation, but Daisy was their best shot and she’d excelled despite the naysayers. For this, Coulson was proud of her. “Is she alright?” Trip said finally, looking apprehensive.

“Daisy is fine,” he said, but noticed that no one in the room looked convinced. It was unlike S.H.I.E.L.D. to pull anyone out of an Op unless something was going wrong. “She’s being extracted by a senior agent that has been undercover within Hydra for quite a few years now. This agent will be joining our team.”

Those who weren’t aware of the agent in question looked even more apprehensive, but he saw the knowing look in both Bobbi and Trip’s eyes as he brought her up and how they shifted, looking around to their colleagues. Only a handful actually looked confused, one of which was Fitz himself, who spoke up. “How do we know that we can still trust this agent?” He asked, undoubtedly bringing up the question that was on everyone’s mind, even those who knew that this agent would rather cut her own throat than invest her loyalty into Hydra. Even through the Hydra leak, she’d remained loyal. “There’s still a question if the people we work with aren’t Hydra, never mind an Agent who has spent god knows how much time in their ranks.”

Coulson looked toward Fitz, sensing the apprehension and slight anger. Ward had been a shock to all of them, but to him the most. “Both agents will be subjected to a lie detector test upon arrival,” he said plainly. “But there is no question of either of their loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Fitz.” He added, looking around the room to see if there were any other agents who had reservations still. “They’ll be arriving at 0800. I suggest anyone who wishes to welcome Agent Johnson back wait until I’ve given them both the all clear.”

 

* * *

 

Jemma and Daisy brushed shoulders as they walked out of the quinjet toward where Director Coulson was waiting for them. He looked happy and pleased to see them both, but also a little bit disheartened considering the reason they both stood there was because one of their lives were in danger, and thus the others was too due to the extraction.

“Agent Simmons, Agent Johnson. Welcome back.” Coulson nodded his head in greeting as he looked forward at the two women. “I’m sure you know the protocol at this point better than I do, but we’ll be separating you two and performing individual tests and then you’re free to join the team.”

Jemma nodded, but Daisy looked a little sadder than before. “AC…” she sighed. “I’m sorry if I compromised my Op in any way. It wasn’t my intention.”

Coulson shook his head quickly. “I knew the risk when we sent you in, and you delivered perfectly. Thankfully, we had Jemma on the inside to help you out and give us the heads up when suspicions arose.”

Daisy looked up at the woman in question and then back at Coulson. “And why wasn’t I told about another Agent being in the ranks? It could have helped. If I didn’t think I could get intel out, then…”

“We didn’t tell you about Agent Simmons because of the length of her undercover work and also because seeing the two of you together, speaking, might arise more suspicions for the both of you. Furthermore, as a level one agent, Daisy, you weren’t privy to the information anyway.” He grinned a little at that last part and she hit his shoulder weakly, pushing beside him quickly.

When Daisy disappeared behind the secure doors, Jemma looked forward at Coulson appraisingly. “How is he?” She asked softly.

Coulson looked as though he were between two minds on how to answer that question. “He’s fine, he’s doing better.”

Jemma nodded, accepting the answer and then sighing once more. “And you’ve not told him who the agent is that returning?”

“It didn’t come up,” he said instantly. Jemma looked skeptical. “I danced around it like a ballerina, Agent Simmons. Not to worry.”

“Good,” she said, nodding, and then slipped through the secure door herself.

 

* * *

 

** Day 1840 **

She woke up to the feeling of hot air on her neck despite the coolness of the room and settled into the equally warm embrace that surrounded her. It’d been a long time since they’d been able to wake up like this, probably not since their honeymoon and even that had been interrupted by another Hydra attack that had sent them both in a dizzying array of gunfire and kidnappings with no apology from the organization they were employed in when the time came to come back to work and they’d lost most of the vacation to Hydra’s goons.

The soft sound of moaning tickled her ears and she remained still as Fitz’s arms tightened themselves around her and he sleepily brushed a kiss against the crook of her neck. “Morning,” he whispered groggily, not sounding at all like it was his intentions to stay awake.

The one thing she’d learned very early on in their relationship was how keen he was on his late risings, while she’d constantly be up at the crack of dawn to get a run in before starting her day. Their schedules were consistently opposite, despite both putting in the same hours at the HUB, working side by side. There were times that neither left the lab until the wee hours of the morning, but she’d always been a rotten sleeper, even as a baby. Besides, she liked watching the sun rise in the mornings. It was peaceful.

She rolled in his arms, tracing the distinct lines of his five o’clock shadow as he tightened his grip again, pulling their bodies closer together. Jemma nudged her forehead against his and sighed gingerly as his fingers dug a little harder into her soft flesh, massaging slow circles into the areas he knew she always appreciated the extra touch. “Morning,” she murmured, too, dragging her hand to tangle with his curls. His hair was getting long again, making him appear as boyish as he had when they’d first met.

She’d never tell him that the longer curls reminded her of the girlish fantasies she’d had before their second year at the Academy when he’d come back from Glasgow with trimmed locks and a deeper accent and they’d fucked up against the door of the supply closet in the lab after their second meeting when the want had just become too much to control. He’d always hated those curls, but they were one of her more favorite looks for Fitz. Second to the scruff that was almost always a little more untamed than now.

Their lips slid together in a lazy kiss and she sighed a little as he pulled away, nuzzling her nose. “Happy Christmas, Jemma.”

A soft smile grazed her cheeks and she leaned in for another kiss, this one longer than the one before. “Happy Christmas, Fitz.”

She thought of their families back home, both spending the holidays together in their absence. This would have been their first Christmas together since marrying a year and a bit before at the ripe age of twenty and she knew their Mums would be looking forward to grilling them about plans of the future and how it might affect their home life. She’d also anticipated the question of grandchildren from both ends but they were both still too young for that, despite the longevity of their almost five-year relationship. Plus, fifteen-year-old Jemma had had a ten-year plan that had, more or less, been shot out the window the moment she’d met Fitz and they’d both agreed focusing on their careers seemed like the most rational choices, at least for now.

But there was just something off about spending Christmas alone, in a foreign country with only a handful of people they knew. Something they both felt but wouldn’t acknowledge. After a long moment of silence, she traced her fingers along the back of Fitz’s neck, wondering if he’d fallen back to sleep. “It’s half six,” he said, his words still slurring together as sleepiness took over. “On Christmas, nonetheless. Is it really time to wake up?”

He popped one eye open and looked her, quirking an eyebrow as she laughed, shaking her head lightly at this silly man. Her silly man.

“Well,” she murmured, a devious smile touching her lips instantly. “I suppose I could be persuaded to stay in bed a little longer…”

Fitz grinned, rolling until she was beneath him. She giggled softly, the sound music to his ears and he almost thought it to be a punishable crime to silence it. But her lips were easily in the top five favorite parts of her, and he’d be a fool to resist. So, at once, he erased the space between them and pressed their lips together, a satisfied hum settling at the back of her throat.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

 

* * *

 

** Day 3665 **

Daisy was cleared easily, but hesitated around the entrance of where she and Jemma had met when it was her turn. She had so many questions, more than she was sure that the blonde could answer. They’d talked idlily on the plane ride home, having been accompanied by a bigger man named Agent Mackenzie who preferred Mack who knew Jemma but was new to Daisy. Someone Coulson must have recruited after she’d been sent off to Hydra.

Jemma was kind enough, mostly reserved, but she had been in amongst Hydra agents for nearly two years. There were certain things that would follow you beyond the border. Daisy was on her (at least) fiftieth round of pacing when the machinic sound of a metal scrapping called her attention to the door as it pushed open. Jemma’s blond hair was down from the ponytail she’d tied it in while they rushed across the roof toward the quinjet.

“Oh,” she said, surprised when she looked up. “Agent Johnson, I wasn’t expecting to see you. Did Director Coulson request you again?”

Daisy shook her head quickly. “No, no.” It wasn’t that at all. “I just… I wanted to thank you, Agent Simmons. For saving my butt.”

“Please,” the other woman said. “Call me Jemma. And don’t mention it. Myself and Director Coulson were using my position for your own gain, and I have no problems helping safe guard you and the intel you managed to inquire in operations that I was unable to.”

Daisy smiled and nodded, pausing. “If you weren’t operations, then what were you?”

“I’m a biochemist.” Jemma answered, motioning for them to begin walking. Daisy was thankful, already eager to rejoin with her team. “I worked my way up to the head of the science division in my time there and they had just promoted me to one of Hydra’s second hands, as a matter of speaking, when I got news that they were sending you in.”

“So you didn’t gain a lot of intel in the science division?” Daisy wondered, probably poking her nose in places it didn’t belong. “Or you just needed a different angle?”

“A bit of both,” Jemma said honestly, but wasn’t able to elaborate as the group waiting for them came into their view and she grinned. “Bobbi,” she said to the other blonde, moving to embrace her.

Bobbi squeezed her back. “Welcome home, blondie.” She said, and they both laughed as they pulled away. “Can’t believe you look better than me with blonde hair.” She said, feigning disgust. Jemma laughed, the sound freeing.

Daisy tucked herself under Trip’s chin and fell into his embrace. “It’s good to see you, girl,” he said lowly and she nodded. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he added, whispering it against the shell of her ear. She nodded again, feeling the same but not needing the words to express it.

Trip had been like a lighthouse, finding her in the midst of a bad storm and she’d be eternally grateful for his presence. He’d always been her biggest supporter, even during the times when she didn’t necessarily deserve the support.

Meanwhile, a curt, “Jemma?” cut the conversations to a minimum.

Jemma sucked in a breath and turned toward the source. The entirety of the ride over, she’d been anticipating this, having gone over literally every scenario in her mind and outlined the bad ways that they could spiral into. “Hi, Fitz,” she said softly, the slightest of smiles on her lips. She hoped that she didn’t look as nervous as she felt, but this being their first conversation since she’d dropped off the face of the earth two years prior unnerved her.

“What’ve you done with your hair?” He asked, wide eyes and confused. Because, _of course_ , he’d focus on that.

Jemma turned fully away from the group and pressed her lips together in a fine line. “Ugh, Fitz,” she cried, the sound familiar and worn out. After all this time, he was still the same in some respects. “I _dyed_ it, what do you think I’ve done with it?”

Fitz sputtered a little, somehow looking confused, hurt and angry all at the same time. “I preferred you as a brunette.” He finally spits out, though by the look on his face after he spoke, it hadn’t been what he was going for.

“Well,” Jemma told him, crossing her arms over her chest. “To be frank, I’ve grown on the blonde myself.”

As they squabbled back and forth, Daisy looked between the group of her colleagues and furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait,” she murmured after a moment. “They know each other?” She asked in a hushed whisper.

The small group that had formed to greet the agents back consisted of Daisy’s close friends, all of whom apparently knew this Agent Simmons quite well. She looked upward to see a good portion of them nodding. “Did Fitz ever mention his ex wife to you?” Trip asked, glancing down at her. Daisy hesitated for only a moment before nodding.

Bobbi sighed a little and turned back toward the small group. “Jemma Simmons, Top S.H.I.E.L.D. Biochemist and Agent Fitz’s ex wife… though technically I don’t think they ever finalized the divorce.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest. “We all know them as Fitz-Simmons, they were a force to be reckoned with in their early days.”

“She signed the papers,” Hunter interjected uselessly. “I remember getting absolutely pissed with him when Coulson handed them to him earlier that day.”

Fitz’s mention of The Ex Wife™ had been minor. In the two years since they’d met, he’d been mostly reserved and quiet, but he’d grown to be one of her closest friends here. He’d never even spoke ill of Jemma which she’d always found strange. Talked about her like she was still the reason the sun rose every morning, despite never actually mentioning her name in any shape or form. She’d just always assumed the divorce had been something mutual. But this… interaction. This wasn’t mutual.

They all turned and watched as Fitz went in one direction and Jemma flew her hands up in the air and then took off in the other direction.

“I haven’t seen either of them so riled up since the Op in Budapest.” Hunter added in after a moment and Daisy turned her head, looking slightly confused.

“What happened in Budapest?” She asked, almost hesitantly.

Bobbi smacked the back of his head and ignored his interjected _Ow_. “It was a high-level operation that went bad.” She explained quietly. “That’s all anyone needs to know.”

 

* * *

 

** Day 352 **

It was the first day of her second year at the Academy, and it was about bloody time. Despite her best efforts, she had been unable to stay throughout the summer and inevitably wound up back in Sheffield with her Mum and Dad and Allison. Allison wasn’t half as bad as she had been, but her elder sister (by only two years) was seeing this new man and insisted that Jemma spend time with them at lunch meetings and dinners and it just got tiring. She was glad to be back where she felt like she belonged, and set it in her mind that she would find a way to remain in America one way or another (although, her study visa did end in June.)

She moved into the classroom nearly ten minutes early and sat at her usual spot, setting up her pens, color coded and in order of importance, and her blank lined paper. She began flipping through the text, although she’d learned last year that most of the professors barely seemed to look at them. She’d read through and make her own notes later.

The room was filling up slowly, but she barely noticed people as they filled the rows around her. Everyone chatted among each other, but thankfully this wasn’t like her high school where people were screwing around more than they were there to learn.

“Simmons?” Fully immersed in the first chapter of the book in her palms, she hadn’t even noticed that someone had settled next to her. She looked up to see Fitz staring back at her. Her eyes scanned across his features, from the shortly cropped hair to the scruff on his face. He looked… good. She flushed a little. “Welcome back to Earth,” he joked.

“Hi Fitz,” she closed her book and placed it on the table, looking over at him. “You look good,” she added before she could stop herself. It wasn’t as though it was a lie, he did look better. Still had the boyish charms that she loved about him but there was something different. Even at only seventeen (he’d had his birthday already, but she wasn’t due hers for another couple of days yet), he seemed somehow more mature than he had the year before, and damn it if she wasn’t going to appreciate that.

Her appreciation, however, caused a red flush to cross over his cheeks and neck and he dipped his head before murmuring, “you look good too, Simmons.”

She’d hear all about how _good_ she looked three weeks later in the storage closet of their lab – a place she’d never be able to look at again without blushing – but neither seemed to mind.

 

* * *

 

** Day 3674 **

Fitz was going out of his way to ignore her, which was funny considering they both worked in the lab now. It’d been about a week since her rescue mission with the younger agent, and despite the fact that Coulson had explicitly sat them down and told them that the two of them would be working together, she’d barely seen Fitz. Not that she minded. She didn’t come back for him, she didn’t come back for anyone, except maybe Daisy, who’s rescue mission had blown her cover.

She fiddled mindlessly with the pipettes and looked around the room. Many other agents occupied the room, none of which she’d bothered to learn the name of yet. Nobody seemed to care one way or the other if she were there or not, which bothered her a bit more than it should’ve. She sighed and took out her phone, itching for another field case, but none had come. Coulson had _graciously_ offered her a break, sometime to break down from the persona she’d built up at Hydra but it wasn’t necessary. Nonetheless, it seemed like he was giving her one anyway and she was about to lose her mind of boredom. She’d done menial tasks when she’d first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and then again when she joined Hydra, and she wasn’t going to say she was _below_ this work, but she was bored.

Luckily Daisy passed by the open door of the lab, carrying a tablet, and she straightened up before waking quickly after her. “Daisy!” She said, greeting the younger girl. “How’s your day going?”

Small talk, she thought to herself quietly, strong opener.

“Er,” Daisy frowned, quite probably feeling as awkward as Jemma about the situation. “It’s fine. Coulson’s got me running errands. I’m actually on my way to see Fi-“ she stopped suddenly. “An Agent regarding a quinjet technical error.”

“You can say his name, you know,” Jemma said politely, but sternly. She wasn’t going to have the whole of their team bouncing around the two of them like one of them might break given half an opportunity. It was childish of them. They were more than that, better than having their colleagues trying to dance around their existences like they were teenagers, just broken up.

Then again, she had been the one to ask Direction Coulson via a private server to not let Fitz know she was coming back, and had been glad to see him follow up with that. Perhaps they were just taking their lead. She shook her head suddenly and smiled a little bit. “Perhaps I can take that to Agent Fitz?” She gestured to the tablet. “I think it’s about time we have a little chat, work out things as amicably as possible.”

If Daisy thought it was a bad idea, she didn’t flinch, but she was sure the moment she crept up whichever way that she was going to be sent the younger agent would be in the common room, murmuring things about _Hurricane Fitz-Simmons_ , the kind that she’d been hearing since she returned. Bobbi and Hunter knew the worst of it – the fights that drove even **them** insane, but to everyone else it was just stories. Of the Academy, of their time working at Sci-Ops together and apart, of Budapest.

Her blood ran cold and she tried to focus on Daisy as the tablet was placed in her palms. “He’s in the Control Room, do you know how to get there?” She asked, the hesitance only showing softly in the careful tone of her voice. Jemma nodded, despite the fact that she did not, in fact, know how to get to the control room. It couldn’t be that hard. Nonetheless, Daisy smiled and patted her on the back. “It’s the hallway across from Coulson’s office,” she said quietly and then disappeared back the way she came.

Their reunion the week before had been the most they’d talked, but if they were to be working together on missions, they needed a common ground – even if it meant forgetting the past altogether. If that was what he needed, a clean slate, then she could provide that.

 

* * *

  


“Daisy,” he said, sounding relieved. Fitz didn’t look up as she entered the room, obviously expecting Agent Johnson and not herself. She wasn’t sure why he was elbow deep in servers and looking like the entirety of the world rested solely on his shoulders, but it was a look she’d seen before, far long to a time neither spoke about other than the discussion they’d had on the BUS during pick up. If you could call a full-blown argument that left neither of them satisfied as their commander at the time, rest his soul, had cut them off and told them to back off. Less than three months later, she’d be in Hydra thinking about all the things she wished she would have done, all the things she wished she would have said but instead, signed the divorce papers that were sent to her after three sleepless days of deliberation.

She supposed a lot of their problems came down to the lack of communication.

“Hi, Fitz.” Jemma cleared his throat. “Agent Johnson asked me to pass this to you, Director Coulson has her running around the base.”

Fitz stopped whatever he was doing almost instantly and held his position for a few moments before he looked up at her, looking more like the boy he’d been the first time they’d met than the man he’d grown into. He quickly turned away from her and grabbed a rag, wiping his hands down before he held out one toward her expectantly. When she didn’t drop the tablet immediately, he sighed a little. “On with it, will you?”

Jemma furrowed her eyebrows and laid it in his palm. “So that’s it?” She asked, almost in disbelief.

Fitz paused and scoured the screen for the details it provided and then looked up at her for a brief second, setting the tablet to the side and then rolling his sleeves back up, looking back toward the row of servers and beginning work again. “Did you have something else to tell me, Agent Simmons?” He asked, his tone plain and tired.

“No,” she replied, her eyebrows furrowing. “Fitz, I think we should talk-“

“About what?” He dropped his hands and crossed his arms over his chest, not seeming to care about the dirt that ruined the periwinkle color of his shirt. “The weather? How I’ve been? Come on Simmons, neither of us have ever been good with small talk.”

Licking her lips, she knew inwardly that he was right and she shouldn’t push but she was so damn infuriated with him suddenly. She _knew_ , oh god, she _knew_ that the root of their issues wasn’t just him or her or the lack of communication or the lies and that neither of them were saints but…

“I think it’s best if we just work apart from each other. I’ve already spoken to Coulson about it,” Fitz turned away from her when he spoke. “I think it’s better for the both of us. I can work for you, Simmons, I just can’t work with you.”

There was a burn in her eyes that it took her mind a moment to register were tears because all she could focus on were his words as they hit again and again, like bullets to her soul. She stared at him wordlessly and blinked back them back the best they could. “What are you talking about? I thought…”

“Thought we’d just pick up where we left off?” He still wasn’t looking at her, almost like that would break the resolve he’d built around himself, the firewall. “I think you ruined that chance when you left to go to Hydra.”

Jemma stopped, more furious than ever as she stared at him. “Do you think I wanted to spring it on you like that?” She said, her voice raising a little louder than it normally would have been. Nonetheless, it wavered as she tried to gain control of her emotions. But it’d just been so damn long of him ignoring her. “I spent nearly a week with that information in my head, the fact that they were just going to tug me out of Coulson’s team because they needed me and I didn’t know how to tell you. I suffered with that decision, Fitz, but in the end, I knew if I told you any earlier you wouldn’t have gone on with the BUS. You would have stayed in our lab and waited for me and there would have been no point for it. At least here you have friends, people who care about you. I couldn’t think of you being alone like that.”

Fitz stopped again, looking straight at her like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “So you didn’t tell me that you were bloody flying off in the thick of it on a suicide mission because you thought I’d be _lonely_?” He was angry, too, she could hear and see that. “Bloody hell, Jemma, I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.” She said back, calmly. “But you wouldn’t have, I know you, Fitz.” She tensed a little, thinking again of all the would’ve-could’ve-should’ve’s that had laid dormant in the back of her mind for so long. “We’ve been in each other’s lives since we were sixteen years old and I know every single thing there is to know about you.” She paused, her voice thick with emotion that she swallowed down pointlessly. “I didn’t tell you about the assignment because I didn’t want you to go and hide yourself away, Fitz. You’re so brilliant, your work should be appreciated by everyone and this opportunity, with or without me, was too grand for you to pass up.”

Fitz remained silent after she spoke, eyes downturned and his lower lip between his teeth, a nervous tick he’d never been able to drop. She stood there, feeling vulnerable and a little empty, but no longer angry.

“If this… us not working together, if it’s what you really need…” she said once the silence threatened to smother her. “Then I’ll talk to Coulson, too, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

As she was turning to leave, she heard his voice, full of sadness and regret. “Jem?” He called carefully. She stopped in her tracks, looking over her shoulder. He was staring back at her, every emotion he felt resting on his features. He was always so open to her, even before they really knew each other – she knew exactly how he felt and what he needed and ebing able to read him was something she prided herself on. “Thank you,” he said finally. “For that never wavering faith you have in me.”

“I always believed in you, Fitz. That never changed. That wasn’t why I signed the papers.”

Before he can stop himself, he finds himself asking, “then, why did you?”

The ends of Jemma’s lips quirk into a sad smile. “Because at the end of the day, Leo, I thought it would make you happy. I know what happened in Budapest changed the way you looked at me and I didn’t know who I’d be coming back from the assignment… I didn’t even know if I’d come back alive.”

Jemma paused, watching his solemn reaction to her words and when he opened his mouth to say something, she shook her head quietly. “My Mum always said, if you love something, set it free and as a girl I always thought that it was so foolish. Why on earth would you find something you absolutely loved and just let it go? And for years I remained with that thought, long after we met and long after we fell in love and long after we married… until the very day I received the papers in a transcript along with details of my mission. And I must have read over the details a million times, wishing I could call you and just talk to you but I realized all this time Mum was right.”

“It wasn’t even that I didn’t want you waiting for me. It was that I didn’t want you to have to.” She said quietly, with finality. “I’m not the girl you married when we twenty and careless, Fitz. I don’t think you’re him, either, and that’s okay.  After all of this, all I’ve ever wanted you to be is happy. And if that was without me, then it was the bitter pill I had to swallow.”

And with that, she turned, exiting the control room quietly.

 

* * *

 

** Day 2902 **

_Mission Location: Budapest, Hungary_

_Time: 08:30_

_Mission: Extract 0-8-4_

_Mission Details: 0-8-4 is believed to be a woman in her thirties, many reports circle around an individual with her description. Woman is believed to be armed and dangerous. She has been exhibiting signs of super-human strength and there is a report that she can control the minds of people around her._

As Jemma read through the file, she looked around at the team that had been assembled. She knew pretty much everyone in the room, aside from a male agent who’d introduced himself as Antoine Triplett. She knew him by reputation, and trusted that he, along with the rest of them, would back each other up. Dropping the file onto the table once she finished, she inhaled softly. “What’s our plan?” She asked quietly.

Her usual involvements in missions regarding 0-8-4s were simple. Identify if the 0-8-4 was dangerous to the human population biochemically and if they would have to take special precautions bringing the unidentified object into S.H.I.E.L.D. It didn’t usually bring that much risk to her or Fitz, who was almost always dragged into it because he was her second brain and as one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top engineers, his expertise in the makings of certain objects and tactical training in breaking and entering were always an asset.

Bobbi looked across the table and then at the rest of their small group. It was only herself, Fitz-Simmons, Hunter, Trip and Mack on this mission as well as a handful of operatives with trigger happy fingers in case of emergency. Bobbi would be leading this mission, her first ever, and she was more than happy to see it through. “Do we have a lock on the exact location, yet?” She looked at Fitz, who’d been tinkering on his computer with formulas and data that had almost always gone over her head, but she’d become a little better at reading them.

“Just about,” he answered her quickly. “I should have it in about ten minutes or so, G.P.S. is a bit wonky today for some reason.”

Bobbi nodded. “Once Fitz has the location, we’re going to need to surveillance it and then plan our next move. Fury wants this girl alive, and we have to deliver.”

In theory, the mission was one of their easier tasks. The five of them, excluding Agent Triplett, had been shoved into their fair share of missions together, especially since it seemed like they had an excellent success record to show for it. The team proceeded as usual, waiting until the location was locked and they made a plan. Several hours later though, their plan was shot to hell when Agent Fitz and Agent Simmons had been extracted on the outer walls by an unidentified man, not the woman they were looking for.

Every plan they had was thrown out the window almost immediately. No longer was the issue at hand simply getting the 0-8-4, but rather making sure that their agents came back in one piece.

Meanwhile, inside, Jemma huddled in the corner as a man fixed a gun on her, Fitz halfway across the room with a knife pressed against his throat. She had a gun on her person, despite her distaste for them, and she could’ve easily silenced at least the man in front of her if she weren’t afraid of what the suspected 0-8-4 might do to Fitz.

The woman, who’d remained unnamed in every file she’d read preparing herself for this case, seemed crazed and scared. She had these abilities that even she didn’t understand, and had scene the two agents with the guns and feared for her life. No matter of talking would get them out of this situation – Jemma had tried. The woman just didn’t trust them. For good reason, too, she supposed. They had been lurking, trying to get close enough to send the D.W.A.R.F.s in to gauge the seriousness of the situation. Unfortunately, the sight of the flying device had set her on edge the worst way.

Jemma looked over at Fitz, who was having a hushed conversation with the woman. The woman was answering, but through the larger man in front of her, she couldn’t actually see her lips to be able to see what she was saying.

Their coms had been dropped out by the case of the rest of the D.W.A.R.F.s and unnecessarily, she looked to the side where Sleepy laid, a broken pile of metal now. She wondered if their team had a plan, or were still trying to concoct something together that didn’t get anyone killed.

The woman tensed after Fitz said something, holding the knife a little closer to his neck and she said loudly, loud enough for Jemma and the man in front of her to hear across the room, “shut up! Right now, I know what you’re doing… you’re not trying to help me. They never do.”

When the man turned around to see her, Jemma took out her gun and shot the guy in front of her in the knee. He went down quickly, and blindly, and she kicked the gun out of his reach, tucking it back in her own holster. Several other guns in the room moved on her but she looked at all of them levelly. “Nobody else has to get hurt,” she said, looking at the woman in particular. “We’re here to help.”

Everything she’d been taught in her years at S.H.I.E.L.D. is that their main purpose was to never harm. Extraction was never to shove these people in jail cells, but rather rehabilitation processes. Only the worst of the worst ended up in anything like that. And this woman… she’d killed people, but she was afraid. There was still a chance for her. The men surrounding her dropped their guns slowly and tucked them back away at her command.

“What’s your name?” Jemma asked softly, still holding the gun tightly in her hand, but no longer pointed toward the people who surrounded them.

The woman hesitated, but finally murmured, “Heather. My name’s Heather.”

To their side, she heard sounds on the other side of the door and a large bang as someone tried to pry it open. Heather, previously calmed down even for just a little held the knife a little tighter, so tight that her knuckles went white with strain and pushed it against his neck. “Who’s out there?” She asked, looking straight at Jemma. “Are there more of you?”

“We’re just trying to help you, Heather,” Jemma tried to remain calm, but Heather was growing increasingly agitated and the lights began to flicker with her despair. “Please put down the knife. Nobody is going to hurt you if you just put down the knife.”

“But you would hurt me otherwise?” She looked at Jemma with disbelief and huffed. “You’re all the same, you’re government people. You see me as a problem you need to get rid of. And I guess I understand that… but you won’t hurt me, as long as I’ve got him.”

“Jem!” He said, distressed and trying not to talk too much. The woman held the knife against his neck, digging it a little bit deeper. Jemma saw blood coming from the blade and looked back and forth between the object and him. “No, don’t shoot her. She won’t kill me!”

But if she had intentions on backing down, she had even less now. Heather lifted her hand with the knife and moved to thrust it into his neck as the sounds of their team breaking in through the door made her tense up more and she stopped moving for a moment. “Put your hands up!” She heard Bobbi scream at the top of her lungs. Jemma took a moment hesitation before she lifted her gun again, intending to shoot Heather in the palm, but she moved at last second and the oncoming bullet went straight into her head. The grip she had on Fitz loosened immediately as the woman fell to the ground, dead.

“What were you doing?” Fitz was on his feet, despite looking woozy and tired, and in front of her in a moment. “We could have saved her,” he said as the rest of the team began rounding up the men who’d held their hands up at their command earlier. He looked at Jemma, staring at her like it was the first time they’d met, and all he could see was a murderer. “You didn’t have to shoot her.”

“You don’t know that…” she insisted, her voice much quieter than his own. Jemma stared blankly at the body on the floor and took a deep, uneven breath. All she could hear in the background was Fitz repeating _She didn’t have to die, we could have helped her_.

She was a murderer. Unprovoked. All she saw was the knife and what could have happened and…

She shot her.

 

* * *

 

** Day 3690 **

Fitz wormed his way into the lab, barely missing the lab attendant coming straight at him as he focused on the two warm teas in his hand. Luckily, apparently, their colleagues were used to this method of transport on his part and worked their way around the lab seamlessly, without even having to double check his movements.

When he stopped to the side of her and offered her a cuppa, she smiled and took it from his palm quietly. After taking a sip, she looked over at him. “You remember how I make my tea,” she said, a soft, warm smile taking over her features.

She seemed surprised, which surprised him. _Of course_ , he would remember. He hasn’t forgotten anything about her likes and dislikes, despite the amount of effort he put into attempting to do that. He remembers fondly how she loves a cup of hot chocolate on cold winter days, always in the evening, so she can tuck under a blanket and read. Or how on summer days, even in the hottest of heat, she’ll wear something with some sort of sleeve because she hates her shoulders (a thing he never quite got because they’re one of his favorite parts of her). Or how when she was thirteen she almost burned down her family home doing a project for her school science fair.

There’s things he remembered that are so obsolete and possibly silly, but he remembered them all because they’re parts of her that he wanted to keep close to him, even in the darkest of days.

Nonetheless, he doesn’t tell her this, but instead smiled back in her direction and told her, “Of course” and turned to their work. Their last project with the Inhumans was tiring, but worth it. Especially knowing Daisy was one, and she needed as much support as she could possibly get. The tracking program wasn’t there idea, or their friends, but rather a sublet of the Sokovia Accords. A bunch of foolishness, if anyone asked Fitz, but no one had.

“What’s on the agenda today?” He asked, feeling slightly scrutinized under her unwavering gaze, but somehow warm and welcomed. She smiled softly to herself and dropped her gaze, focusing on the papers in front of her.

Skimming through the page, she hummed softly, her thumb rubbing up and down the side of her mug. “We’ve done most of this… the only thing that’s left can be easily handed to one of the technicians,” she murmured softly. “I’d like to get bad working on Daisy’s gauntlets, if you don’t mind,” she added as she dropped the paper back. “Maybe if I can see that you’re helping me, she’ll stop antagonizing me about them.”

Of course, while Daisy and Jemma got along with most things, the gauntlet proposition when Jemma had first rejoined had been a conflict between them. Daisy had had her powers for the better part of half a year before she’d been sent into the thick of Hydra and had managed to keep them in check but the escape plan had brought up some extra juice that had left her bruised and with a broken arm without another man doing it to her. The gauntlets were a concept to keep her from using too much and hurting herself, but Daisy knew her limits and this had been the first occurrence since she’d changed.

Fitz, being close to the both of them, albeit a little bit strained with Jemma still – they were working on that – had seen the conflict and tried to diminish it before it happened. Daisy had called it _picking sides_ and had fought them both on it.  Things had been tense since then. “Daisy’s just… she’s new to all of this and the Accords have us all shaken up… never mind the world’s governments telling her that she has to abide to them or go to jail, S.H.I.E.L.D. employee or not.”

Jemma nodded her assent and sighed. “I know, I just… I want to help her. I don’t want to hinder her.”

Fitz looked her and smiled slightly. “Of course,” he agreed. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”

 

* * *

 

** Day 3724 **

Daisy came in from the landing area, swinging her arms back and forth as she knocked the gauntlets together. Arguably, they weren’t the worst thing and there’d been a record setting amount of zero injuries since she’d tried them on. She couldn’t entirely complain about them, except maybe they were a little too heavy but they were a first generation, the closest thing to the prototype that Fitz had shown her just a few weeks back. They’d get better.

She turned the corner and headed toward the lab, ready to give Fitz and Simmons her full thoughts on them, but was surprised to find neither of them in the lab. Furrowing her eyebrows, she pushed through the expanse and checked through doors, wondering if – _maybe_ – they’d gotten their shit together and…

Daisy stopped suddenly, shuddering and wondering if she really needed to give them the full report or if she should stop looking before she walked in on them. Just as she was about to give up, she caught a glimpse of Jemma’s long brown hair. She faced away from her, fiddling with something that her body blocked.

“Thank God,” she murmured as she walked in, slowly removing the heavy material from around her wrists. She dumped them carefully in front of Jemma and moved around the island to grab a cup, pouring in what had to be at least an hour old coffee into the mug, but it still steamed. She counted it as a win.

“Oh, Daisy!” Jemma seemed to drop from a trance suddenly as she looked up at her, beaming widely. “How were they?” She picked up one to investigate them, looking them over for damage.

“Could be a little lighter, but other than that your brain twin powers with Fitz have come together and created something magnificent.” Daisy nodded, surprised that her coffee wasn’t the worst that she’d drank and almost relieved. “I figured I’d be stroking both of your egos coming back,” she mused playfully. “Where’s Fitz hiding?”

“Oh,” Jemma laid the gauntlet down beside it’s twin and lifted her tea to her lips, taking a slow sip. “Coulson came in about an hour ago, and asked him to help him with something. Said it would only be quick, but I figure with the way things go wrong around here, I’ve got another two or so before we’re blessed with his company again.”

Daisy laughed at that, nodding her head. “You haven’t even seen the worst of it,” she told her honestly. “When we found out one of our own was Hydra it kind of put a massive strain on the rest of the team. And S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, technically the organization itself as fallen. You missed a lot hiding away in an office under Hydra’s control.”

While Daisy’s tone remained playful, Jemma grew a little more solemn. “I did miss a lot, but I know about most of it. I know about what Agent Ward did to all of you.”

“Especially Fitz,” Daisy didn’t mean to take away from how Agent Ward had had her under his spell, or that she’d genuinely believed in every single lie he’d told her but in the end, she hadn’t wound up abandoned in the middle of the ocean with a broken arm. It’d only been by sheer luck that he’d managed to survive. “I’ve dealt with a lot, so Ward just felt like another abandonment to me and as bad as that sounds, it hurt for a little while and then I got over it. But Fitz… the two of them were super close. He took it hard.”

Jemma stayed silent for a while, alternating between taking slow sips of tea and fiddling with her nail beds. She regretted so much, if anyone were to ask her, regretted not coming back the second she’d heard about the falling MedPod that he had jumped from as it fell from the sky. Or the dead agent that they’d never found that had been falling with him. Or how he’d shut down for several weeks after that, survivors guilt taking over his entire personality.

She wasn’t even sure if she would have been any help then, but she’d been there the day that Coulson had pushed files across the dinner table toward her and told her that Agent Fitz was temporarily suspended from his position until a S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist cleared him. “I know,” she said finally, not bothering to elaborate. She wondered briefly if she knew more than Daisy herself knew regarding the situation, but she had a feeling that her fellow Agent knew a lot more than she let on.

“He carries a lot on his shoulders, a lot more than he’d ever care to let anyone know,” she added after a moment, taking a longer sip of her tea as she lifted her gaze to meet Daisy’s quietly.

Daisy nodded instantly, looking quickly at her palms. “I remember when I first changed. I didn’t tell anyone, I kind of didn’t even realize it myself but he figured it out and he took a lot of the burn away from me. He did a lot to protect me. He’s the big brother I’ve never had,” she smiled fondly.

A soft smile hesitantly tugged its way onto her friend’s face and she nodded slowly. There was an obvious connection between Fitz and Daisy that she both admired and envied. Daisy took the silence in for a long moment. “Fitz still believes in you,” she told her quietly. “And I’d put money on the fact that the heart eyes he permanently has while talking about or looking at you aren’t nothing either.” The brunette dug her teeth into her lips. She felt bad for meddling in their business, but how could these idiot yet brilliant scientists not see how perfect they were for each other? “I don’t think Budapest changed that either.”

Jemma turned back toward Daisy silently, taking in her words. She wondered briefly how she even knew about what happened in Hungary, but she chalked it off to Bobbi or Fitz or one of the half dozen agents that knew what happened that day to a marvellous extent and had read the file reports and the fall out between both parties of Fitz-Simmons. "Fitz has always believed in retrieval and peace, it's one of the things I admire the most about him. He always stood up for what was right, even if I didn’t agree with his stance either. Budapest… Budapest was different."

"How?"

Jemma chewed on her lower lip, contemplating how to approach what she planned to say next. Sitting up a little straighter, she turned to the other woman cautiously. "Have you ever noticed the scar on Fitz's neck? I suppose if he's anything like he used to be, he wears button ups all the time to cover it but-"

"Jemma," she was laughing as she cut her off, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Yes. Once. It was around the time that I joined the team. I asked him about it but he said he didn't want to talk about it. I just figured it was bad memories and let it slide."

Jemma's lips pulled into a tight smile. Even without meaning to, Daisy has latched onto the idea very easily. Fitz wasn't necessarily transparent but he did live with his heart on his sleeve. It was always the one thing she found so honourable about him. Despite everything he was consistently loyal to everyone. To her. "Well, on the Op, Fitz and I ran into trouble. The suspect was a woman, on the younger side. She held him hostage, and was spooked when our team came in. She dug her knife a little too hard against his flesh, I don't even think it was her intention to hurt him but she was afraid, and he was bleeding profusely. When she moved her hand to strike again I tried shooting at it to stop her from hurting him, but she moved and the bullet unfortunately went straight in her head."

"And the shot killed her?" Daisy said, voice void of emotion.

"Nearly immediately, I'm afraid," Jemma answered and nodded her head slowly. "But Fitz felt so personally responsible for it. I don't ever think he was mad at me. More mad at himself for not being able to save her. He wouldn't even talk about it with me. Just said he wanted to forget the whole thing and... it was the worst feeling," she added, sighing heavily. "I've been a part of his world for so long and it just felt as though he were cutting me off from it all at once." Jemma turned away from her and looked longingly into the distance. "A few months later, I was undercover in Hydra and he was aboard the BUS and he filed for divorce."

Daisy turned to see Jemma dipping her head, wiping at her eyes when she thought Daisy wasn't looking. "You and Fitz are so close," she told her, meaning it too. "People like that don't just fall apart that easily. Fate has got to be on your side if you came back together."

Jemma smiled a watery smile and said nothing for a long moment. "You know, as a girl, I never believed in fate or soulmates or any of that nonsense. But, now? I hope you're right, Daisy."

The woman turned and left the room, leaving Daisy to contemplate her words.

 

* * *

 

** Day 3748 **

Fitz flicked through files aimlessly, reading up on whatever intel had been available to them regarding the next mission. Their travels brought them to small town Utah, where a potentially dangerous Inhuman lay. He’d been on the plane a lot more lately, although he couldn’t really figure out why. His expertise wasn’t Inhumans at all.  Entuned in his reading, he didn’t notice two agents approach him. “Hey, Fitz,” they chimed in unison, jolting his attention toward them.

Daisy and Bobbi shared as he jumped, running his hand over his face and muttering a quiet hello. “You and Simmons have been getting along well recently,” Bobbi prodded gently. “It’s nice to see.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged again, chewing on his lower lip as he paused, flicking his gaze from the tablet to them momentarily. “We always got on, me and Jemma, even when we didn’t.”

“It’s kind of funny to see you work,” Daisy confessed with a soft laugh. “You two finish each other’s sentences and bounce around each other like you knew where the other was going before you even looked up. It’s like you have this psychic connection or something.”

Fitz briefly thought of their early days at the Academy when he would stutter over sentences and infuriate her without trying to, or how she’d been convinced that he hated her because he often couldn’t find the words to talk to her or he had strived to be better in their classes, when in fact he was just trying to impress her.

A lot had happened since then, but he supposed the fact that they were so incredibly entwined in each other’s minds and bodies that it did almost seem as though they had a connection beyond normal connections. He might not have called it a psychic connection, but nonetheless. The science behind a psychic was vague and almost completely nonexistent.

“Yeah,” he shrugged a little. “I guess so.”

Even during the worst days, when the fights had them both sleeping in different beds or during the days when he didn’t go to sleep at all, he’d always felt a certain closeness to Jemma. She was, simply put, his best friend in the whole world. On the bad days when he’d revert back to the young boy whose father belittled him, she would be there, his biggest support.

Perhaps one of his biggest faults had been that he hadn’t supported her at the exact moment she’d needed it. Instead, he sent her a thick folder with divorce arraignments in it after one particularly rough night on his own.

“Do you ever wonder,” he said, almost to himself more than to Daisy or Bobbi, but they were listening nonetheless. “If you could go back and change one thing in your past, if you would do it?”

The question was met with silence for a moment. “You can’t change the past, Fitz,” Bobbi answered, using the tone that he’d always dubbed as her ‘Big Sister Voice’. “Sometimes you have to learn to be able to move on from it and use it as a growth experience.”

Daisy nodded in agreeance. “I was always told that everything happens for a reason. Maybe what happened between you and Simmons was meant to be.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” he said suddenly, placing the folder flat on his lap. “But I’ve always believed in her.”

 

* * *

 

  **Day 3750**

He found her, body pressed against rough bricks as she stared quietly out into the expanse of earth. The window facing outward showed the cityscape in the far distance and the mass of green acre hid away the only outward facing window of the Playground. It might’ve been a beautiful sight if not for the fact that it brought forth the realization of complete solitude that they had. Some people loved it, and once Fitz might’ve agreed. He wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. must have spent weeks looking for my apartment,” Jemma mused as she looked back and noticed him standing there. Her gaze quickly turned back to the outside, still coated with a light layer of barely there light that colored blue. “I remember when I was brought there the first time. You would’ve liked it, I kept thinking that. Except there was only one window, albeit a fairly large window. Coulson told me on more than one occasion they did it that way so that there would be less threats, but I always found it so weird how this beautiful home could have one single window. I used to spend hours when the nights got bad… just staring out at civilization.”

Jemma cleared her throat and shook her head. “Looking back now, it seems so silly of me. I could freely move on my days off, although free wasn’t a word I’d typically use with Hydra and I knew what the sun felt like on my face. I wasn’t in isolation but every day felt like it. I couldn’t send messages out unless they were important, and even then, I had to do something absolutely silly like drop it in a coffee cup and throw it in the trash.”

 Fitz moved to lean against the other slab of brick and nodded slowly. “I felt like that too… after I was dropped from the MedPod and left to die.” He looked away from her and out through the window, but could still feel her eyes on him, watching him carefully – not the same way most did when he broached this subject. She didn’t look at him like he was a live bomb ready to go off. “Agent Palmer… she died on the way down. The force of being ejected from the plane knocked us both around but she got the worst of it. She went straight into the glass cabinet and… there was so much blood everywhere.” He shook his head, as though trying to shake the memory away. “I was too busy trying to get the doors open and when I did, I looked back and she was already dead.”

He looked up to see her, still watching him, but her expression the sign of grief as opposed to curiousness. “I couldn’t save her, Jem,” he said softly. “It felt like I was back in the warehouse again, staring at _her_ and before I knew what I was doing, I was jumping. I saved myself.” He slid his palm against his face and rested his closed fist against his chin. “I think that was when I finally understood what you did… even if I didn’t agree with it at the time. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with it now,” he confessed. “There was nothing you could have done. Whatever happened to her… whoever crushed her trust had already done too much damage. If you hadn’t shot her, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I think about it almost every day,” she told him, looking away. “What I could have done, what might’ve changed and every single time I think about it, I remember that scar on your neck is because she was erratic, she wanted to be left alone and knew I wouldn’t hurt her as long as she had you and she just… she had so much power in her hands. She was going mad with it, Fitz. Every single scenario I picture, it ends the same way, because you’re right. If I hadn’t… you’d be dead.”

Jemma turned to see him still watching her, quietly observing. He didn’t divert his gaze when she turned, instead held her gaze a little more firmly. “I never said thank you for saving my life.” He said at once, his voice shaking.

“Oh, Fitz,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “You never had to.”

Of all the Ops they’d been on, of all the times that they’d been in danger, she’d never taken a second to question whether or not she would put herself in harm’s way to make sure he was safe. And she knew without a doubt that he’d felt the same once. Maybe still did. Even still, even after all this time, he was still one of the most important people in her life.

“I’ve always loved you,” he said, almost too quiet for her to hear. “Even when I drew up the papers. Even when you signed them back to me. That was anger, that was petulance.”

Jemma stepped closer to him, her heart on her sleeve. Her throat felt clogged and head heavy. “To be fair,” she said to him, quiet and unlevel. “I signed them because I thought it was something you wanted. Not because it was something I did.” She stopped moving, leaving them with only a handful of inches between them. “I’ve been in love with you for nearly twelve years, Fitz… that’s not something that goes away so easily.”

Fitz stared down at her for a long moment, every emotion flowing through him. Then, in the rising rays of the sun, he bent and pressed a soft kiss against her lips and she wrapped her arms tightly around him.

Today was a brand-new day.

 

* * *

 

 

** Day 4608 **

When he found her, after being given a cryptic note and a poorly drawn map to her location by a junior agent, she was wearing a similar dress to the one that she’d been wearing the day they married. It wasn’t as long, or as white, but the nostalgia brought up feelings that he’d long since buried. Nonetheless, he bent, greeting her with a soft kiss before he sat down on the blanket she’d laid out in the grass of Central Park. She smiled, looking heavenly, and shifted so she could see him.

“You couldn’t’ve just said ‘meet me at Central Park, Fitz’?” He asked with a soft laugh and she shook her head, a soft playful grin on her face. He missed that grin.

He’d just come back, the day before, from a week-long mission in Canada regarding an old professor of hers. She’d been offered to go along too, but had declined in favor of a project of her own. The mission couldn’t have come at a better time, as the separation gave her enough time to prepare everything. The map, the time off for them both, the advert that claimed that Central Park was closed for a major water break underneath the soil and the police officers that warded people away from the area.

It might have been a little overdramatic, considering the last time they’d done this she’d been in her pyjamas and just waking up and she’d never trade that moment for anything on this earth but this time was different. They had bigger demons that they carried with them every day, and they’d grown with them enough to be able to accept the faults that came with them. They weren’t the same people they were the first time around, but maybe they were better.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours?” She smiled as she backed out of her thoughts and shook her head slowly. He tucked a piece of stray hair behind her ear and she leaned into the sensation.

“Nothing,” she murmured honestly. “I’ve just been thinking about the last decade or so.”

It was a scary thought, the idea that the two of them would be nearing thirty in just a handful of years and almost half of that time they’d been in each other’s lives. Even apart, they were entwined in mind, body and soul. She never wanted to be without him again.

“Sounds heavy,” he said as he slid his palm down her arm and joined their fingers. “Need me to carry some of that?”

She squeezed his hand and smiled again, nodding. “Always,” she murmured. “But you already do.”

He leaned in and pressed a kiss against her temple as she rustled in her bag and pulled out a small wooden box. She would’ve liked to have had it in her pocket, but dresses were so inconvenient but the symbolism in the garment had been important to her. He pulled away as she tucked it in her palms and raised his eyebrow in a silent question.

She fiddled with the square shape in her hands as she looked up at him. “We’ve been through a lot, you and I, and looking back I can’t imagine doing it any other way. Or with anyone else. I don’t think the day we met, when we were partnered together, I could have ever imagined the life we’d build together or the trials that tore it apart. I think after all this time I’ve come to realize that there’s no one else on this planet I’d rather argue with about the stupidest, most mundane things and just the same, there’s no one I’d rather have on my side backing my every play.”

“It’s been nearly fourteen years since we met, and while we’ve only spent the better part of eleven together, both as friends and as a couple, I know the moments I’ve spent with you are the best of my life thus far. What happened in Budapest and the fall out after… its history, something I might think of for days to come on the worst days – because I don’t think either of us are naïve enough to think that there won’t be days like that to come. It’s also something I’ll never forgive myself fully for. I stand by my decision, Fitz, and I always will, but pushing you away had never been my intention.”

“I’ve only ever wanted you to be as close as possible, together with me in every part of my life and beyond. I’m glad that we’ve both grown together since I came back, instead of apart, and that we’ve both come to terms with the events that tore us apart, and come to love the events that brought us back together. Because even after all this time, there’s no one I want more in my life than you; there’s no one I’d rather wake up bright and early in the morning and have to shove out of bed only to drag back in there when the night is coming to a close. You’re it for me, Fitz. You’re my home.”

“The long and short of what I’m trying to ask here is, Leopold Fitz,” she murmured, popping open the lid of the box in her hands. It was a little slick from sweat, but she was sure he wouldn’t mind. “Would you marry me, again?”

Despite the pause, she wasn’t worried that he’d say yes or no. He looked amused and slightly shocked, but the look of love in his eyes was ever present and wonderful. “Isn’t that my line?” He asked, the softest of laughs spilling from his lips. She laughed too, silencing him with a soft, but quick kiss.

“It’s only fair,” she said as she pulled away from the kiss, ending his protests before he could even utter them. “You asked last time.”

Fitz laughed, the kind of deep bellied laugh that never failed to make her smile and caught her gaze, taking her breath away. “Well then,” he said softly. “How could I refuse?”

He’d never say it, but he’d never be more proud than he was to wear the ring that she’d given him that day. After all, Jemma (Fitz-)Simmons was quite a persuasive woman, and he was madly in love with every inch of her.

 

* * *

 

** Day 1 **

Simmons crawled into her lab early as usual. She’d spaced her classes out enough that she would always have time to get there and prepare. She wasn’t in there long before a curly haired boy tucked inside the door, looking for the same nameplate that she had looked for when she’d come in. Their placements had already been settled for them, thankfully. While Jemma preferred working alone, if she were meant to work with someone she’d prefer it to be chosen by anyone but her. It brought her back to high school chemistry when she’d be the only one without a partner due to her age and the older girls were always childish and mean about it.

After a few moments of shuffling around the room, he came a little closer to her and stopped, huffing a little before he placed his things in the cabinet beneath the lab bench next to her seat and sat down, laying out the printed off lab and setting up the beginnings of it without question. She thought herself rude to stare, but she couldn’t help but notice how young he looked. He might’ve been her age or younger. She hadn’t been expecting that at all, or to be paired with him.

They didn’t talk much through the lab. She knew his name was Leo, due to the name plate that was there, but felt no more comfortable than he did to call him anything. On the end of their lab, the two ran a little behind time in the clean up and Jemma, after a strenuous argument, had convinced their lab professor that they would be fine to put everything away without guidance. It just left the two of them after that.

“Could you pass me that?” She gestured to the beaker beside his wrist and he presented it to her without question, disposing of the last of their chemicals into their proper place before he cleaned the work bench and then began unfolding himself from the starch white lab coat he wore. Jemma came back from dropping the beaker off to see him already busying to put his coat back on and ditch out, but the sight of the blue police box stopped her. “You’re a fan?” she asked, gesturing to his shirt.

“Oh,” he looked down at his shirt and back up at her. “Yeah,” he added quietly. “My Mum and I used to watch it every week. Used to be the only time I’d break from my studies, so I think she called it a win.”

Jemma’s parents never quite got the point of Doctor Who, but as far back as she can remember, she’d been watching the classic version and had been absolutely enthused to hear that there was a possibility of a reboot in the make. “I’m Jemma,” she said suddenly, thrusting her hand out. He faltered for a second before grasping it in his own and shaking it firmly. “Jemma Simmons. Biochem.”

Leo nodded, taking in her words quietly. “I’m Leo Fitz,” he told her after a moment. “But I prefer Fitz. I’m in Engineering.”

They didn’t know it then, but that moment was the start of something absolutely beautiful.


End file.
